Professional colleges in Telangana face uncertainty as seats go vacant

The future of around 200 professional colleges in Telangana looks uncertain as the state government is in no mood to allow them to function as they do not qualify the prescribed academic standards for technical education.

The state government and Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University (JNTU-H) are unwilling to dilute their stand on not granting reaffiliation status for 174 colleges.

It is learnt the government and JNTU-H are planning to challenge the Single Judge order in the Supreme Court as the deadline for announcement of Phase-II is closing in.

The high court Single Judge on August 25 ordered for the inclusion of 175 colleges that had met the faculty norms and said the intake should be according to the guidelines prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). On August 28, a division bench of the high court refused to stay the orders of the Single Judge.

Speaking to Business Standard on phone, L Venugopala Reddy, chairman of AP Council for Higher Education (APSCHE), said, “there is no clarity on including these colleges in the next phase of counselling as JNTU-H has not forwarded the final list yet.”

Further, he said, “JNTU-H is yet to deploy its team to validate the private college managements’ claim of of having sufficient faculty on their rolls.” Reddy said the Eamcet academic committee would meet this week to finalise the schedule for Phase-II counselling, and added it would take place from September second week.

Meanwhile, private colleges that got a favourable order from the HC are planning to move the court again challenging the university’s inability to send the list of colleges to the higher education council.

Gautam Rao, member of Telangana Engineering and Professional Colleges Managements Association, said they were considering approaching the court “as the decision to exclude hundreds of colleges looks political.” He sought explanation from the government on the rationale behind ordering a second round of inspection when an earlier one in May did not find any discrepancies.

Papi Reddy, chairman, Telanagana Council for Higher Education, said the state government wanted to shut all below par colleges and was keen on having only 100 colleges in the state in the next two years. Telangana has 320 engineering colleges. The state also has listed out plans to rationalise the spending on student fee reimbursements by announcing the Financial Assistance for Students (FAST).

Thousands of seats go vacant in both statesAccording to admission authorities, of the 117,000 engineering seats across 326 colleges in Andhra Pradesh this year, only 63,000 got allotments. In the case of Telangana, the qualified 149 engineering colleges have 66,000 seats and only 52,800 seats were allotted.

The drop in allotments this year was predominantly due to factors including delayed counselling and concerns over the nativity issue proposed by the Telangana government and the general drop in interest among students in opting for engineering courses.

According to APSCHE data, as against the 340,099 engineering seats in 2013-14 in the united state, only 166,066 were filled. In the academic year 2012-13 as against 344,986 seats, 184,919 were filled.

Hyderabad-based educationist Chukka Ramaiah while hailing the decision of JNTU-H not to grant reaffiliation to 175 colleges, urged both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments to come out with a policy on regulating the operations of private colleges and said only serious students should opt for engineering.